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What's your point? If rail / bicycle doesn't work for your specific situation, then drive.
My point is that you'll be saying "Then Drive!" to a whole lot of people. Because most people are not willing to bike it to a train station (which probably isn't close), then jump on a train, and then cycle to work when they could have gotten to work in a fraction of the time by driving. Few people have a "specific situation" where doing everything you described would even be considered.
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Originally Posted by munchitup
And honestly, if you live in the High Desert or Orange County and are commuting into Central LA - you're an idiot, plain and simple. It doesn't matter what mode of transportation you use.
IMO, motivation and situation are the two top things that lead to bicycle commuting. If you aren't motivated to do so (whether by passion, cost, exercise, etc), then you aren't going to make the effort, even if it's convenient to do so. Your situation can overpower your motivation to cycle to work if it's too inconvenient, but some are just that motivated to dedicate the time and consistency to break it down into an efficient, repeatable thing even when long-distance or legs/segments are involved.
Note: The motivation pushes the effort that's needed to plan ahead (e.g. you know you have an early meeting and you get ready early so you're not running late), and the situation dictates what that plan needs to be.
Yeah, that sounds good, but there are practical reasons for not voluntarily subjecting to yourself to a longer commute. If you are billing clients by the minute, then you may be losing out on a good bit of money. And there are also things people might want to do with their time other than pedal away on a bicycle and sit on a bus.
Although bikes (and transit) take up much less space than cars, would the effect just be an induced demand situation, where people just drive further and more often, just like when you add lanes to highways? Of course, if your goal is to allow people to be able to drive further and more often (which could be worth it if congestion is causing serious mobility problems), then have bike infrastructure is likely cheaper than widening highways, but the overall impact of commute times and congestion will probably be small. My experience in Europe is that getting around by car is difficult, due to lack of highways and congestion, it's just that this is less of a problem if there are better alternatives.
Btw in Kitchener-Waterloo, buses have 2 bike racks, and you can even take your bike inside the bus if the racks are full and there is space inside. I don't combine biking with the bus to get to lectures and shopping because they're all close by and I live on a bus route, so there's no point. However, I do combine the two when I go on little excursions to the countryside or other towns in the area since there are some express buses that are faster over long distances, and it allows me to skip the boring part of the trip and save my time and energy to bike more around my destination.
There's also a special train operated by the commuter line that runs from Toronto to Niagara Falls on weekends in the summer, which is popular for excursions. Cyclists are one of its main users, they'll use it to bike around the Niagara Escarpement, along the Niagara River and to check out wineries. The train cars are bi-levels, and I think at least one train car has the whole lower level dedicated to bikes with bike racks.
Yeah, that sounds good, but there are practical reasons for not voluntarily subjecting to yourself to a longer commute. If you are billing clients by the minute, then you may be losing out on a good bit of money. And there are also things people might want to do with their time other than pedal away on a bicycle and sit on a bus.
True, but how many of these people then go to the gym (drive there, park, cycle, drive back) and spend at least an hour doing so? For the workaholics of the world, this conversation is probably moot.
True, but how many of these people then go to the gym (drive there, park, cycle, drive back) and spend at least an hour doing so? For the workaholics of the world, this conversation is probably moot.
If it only took you an hour to cycle to a train station, ride the train, and then cycle to work, then a decent argument could be made for cycling into work (if that person works out at a gym, which is not the case for a lot of people). But how many people can make that type of commute within an hour? It can take 45 minutes to commute door to door from Harlem to Wall Street (and that's with express train service and subway stops every few blocks) so I can only imagine how long it would take to commute via cycling and transit in the burbs.
In DC, they won't allow you to bring a bike on the subway during rush hour. So that's another thing to consider. And bikes are a constant target of theft.
Yeah, that sounds good, but there are practical reasons for not voluntarily subjecting to yourself to a longer commute. If you are billing clients by the minute, then you may be losing out on a good bit of money. And there are also things people might want to do with their time other than pedal away on a bicycle and sit on a bus.
Around here, the thinking with many people is that you take commuter rail so that you can get MORE work done, not less. A very large portion of the people who take commuter rail are working, or reading things that are helpful for their work on the train, something they couldn't be doing while driving. The commuter rail is also often faster if you work in downtown Toronto. From my parents' suburb, it might be only a 30 minute drive to downtown, but that's in good traffic, and traffic is never good in rush hour, and it doesn't include the time and cost to find parking. Taking that into considering, it might take about 1 hour by car, and it's worse (~1.5 hours) often enough that you'd have to leave 1.5 hours before work to make sure you're not late for work too often. That's one major advantage of commuter rail in that area, it's reliable and 99% of the time, the variation in time to get there is less than 5 minutes, meanwhile, when driving it varies a lot more.
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My point is that you'll be saying "Then Drive!" to a whole lot of people. Because most people are not willing to bike it to a train station (which probably isn't close), then jump on a train, and then cycle to work when they could have gotten to work in a fraction of the time by driving. Few people have a "specific situation" where doing everything you described would even be considered.
A lot of people who take transit (commuter rail and especially subway) in Toronto get to the station by bus, and then typically walk once they're in downtown since most of the jobs are very close the subway stations. Biking to the station would likely be faster than the bus. If the station is relatively close, it might even be comparable to driving time-wise (and certainly faster than walking). The other thing is that if you drive to the train station, even though the parking lots often have 1000-2000 spaces, they fill up between 7 and 8 am depending on the station, so you have to leave early. Last year, at our station we had to get there around 7:30 am, this year they're building a parking garage, and the construction greatly reduced the number of spaces, so the spaces are all taken even BEFORE 7am. Fortunately, I'm at university now, but my dad was considering biking, although in the end my mom is dropping him off. Being able to bike and leave your bike at the station would mean you could take one of the later trains and wake up at a more reasonable time.
The other thing about driving in my area is rush hour is pretty bad, so a lot of people wake up earlier to avoid spending too much time in traffic. The result is that rush hour is much longer than an hour, more like 6am-9am and 3pm-6pm.
As for driving kids to school, I don't know what it's like elsewhere, but around here, you don't actually need to do that. Each suburban super block tends to have multiple schools in the middle of them, so they're within walking distance for kids, and they typically don't have to cross any major arterials. I suspect a lot of the kids are driven just because the parents are already getting in their car to go to work, so they might as well drop off their kid while they're at it. Or the kids are lazy or poorly organized and running late... but it's usually not necessary around here. And although you don't have to, it could be fun to bike to school with your kids.
My point is that you'll be saying "Then Drive!" to a whole lot of people. Because most people are not willing to bike it to a train station (which probably isn't close), then jump on a train, and then cycle to work when they could have gotten to work in a fraction of the time by driving. Few people have a "specific situation" where doing everything you described would even be considered.
I believe the goal for most bicycle-ambitious cities is to get 5% of trips to be done via bicycle. So yeah, for most people driving works best.
Honestly with commute times like that, I absolutely would find a way to get to the commuter rail station, especially if for some reason I lived in the Antelope Valley (lets be real, I would probably park and ride). Wow I just looked up the commuter rail from Lancaster and it takes almost 2 hours to get to Union Station (at rush hour! It's a loooong ways out there). You're screwed either way, and this is why you are an idiot if you live in Antelope Valley and work in Central LA. I would imagine most people that live in that area are commuting into the San Fernando Valley - if not, they need their head examined.
For a semester I commuted via car from Thousand Oaks to West LA a couple times a week for an internship - Thousand Oaks, CA to West Los Angeles, CA - Google Maps - a distance of 30 miles typically took over an hour (I had to be there by 8:30 AM, usually left the house around 6 AM).
Last edited by munchitup; 09-25-2012 at 12:50 PM..
Honestly with commute times like that, I absolutely would find a way to get to the commuter rail station, especially if for some reason I lived in the Antelope Valley (lets be real, I would probably park and ride).
The same link also shows that it take two hours and 25 minutes by transit. And that's assuming that (1) you're leaving from the exact point identified on Google maps and (2) the train is sitting right there waiting for you once you arrive at the station.
The same link also shows that it take two hours and 25 minutes by transit. And that's assuming that (1) you're leaving from the exact point identified on Google maps and (2) the train is sitting right there waiting for you once you arrive at the station.
So again, why would you make your commute longer than it has to be?
See my post above (I added to it). The two hours are mostly a function of just how far removed the Antelope Valley is. Plus the trains have to go over a mountain pass, which I'm sure has to have some effect on the speeds.
The reason you would take transit is (as Memph mentioned) you can actually work (and bill) on the train. I know this because my wife has a billable-hours job and she bills on the train.
Last edited by munchitup; 09-25-2012 at 12:51 PM..
If it only took you an hour to cycle to a train station, ride the train, and then cycle to work, then a decent argument could be made for cycling into work (if that person works out at a gym, which is not the case for a lot of people). But how many people can make that type of commute within an hour? It can take 45 minutes to commute door to door from Harlem to Wall Street (and that's with express train service and subway stops every few blocks) so I can only imagine how long it would take to commute via cycling and transit in the burbs.
In DC, they won't allow you to bring a bike on the subway during rush hour. So that's another thing to consider. And bikes are a constant target of theft.
The size of the city/metro is probably a key point here. Cycling to work when you live in Harlem and work on Wall Street is probably not going to work for 99.99% of people, and for good reason. Small and mid-sized cities may be better, because the distances are not commonly as bad (I realize there are extremes). You can, however, work in the burbs and live in the city and have it be a grueling ride.
Bicycling to work isn't really much different from the dynamics of taking public transportation to work. With biking, you need to be close enough to a reasonable route and you probably don't want to be too far from work. With transit, you need to be close enough to a station/stop and you probably don't want to be too far or deal with a route that requires too many transfers.
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